The world’s most hardcore track race

The silence is deafening. For ­­ 11 hours my eardrums have been shattered by racing cars thundering around the Circuit de la Sarthe in the usually unassuming French town of Le Mans – all aiming for glory in one of the most epic races of the year: the 24 Hours of Le Mans. But now, there’s only silence. Standing atop a mound of beer cans, we – 20 spectators, including a kid no older than ­ 10 hanging on to his dad’s sleeve – peer into the pitch-black darkness, waiting. And then, way in the distance, we see a trail of blazing, weaving lights. Evidently there’s a problem – the safety car is out on the track, leading the field. That’s bad. We can all feel it. Unlike in Formula­ 1, the safety car doesn’t come out at Le Mans if a few drops of rain start to fall.

And then the kid screams. Up on the giant screen fl ashes ghastly footage of an accident; an accident no driver could possibly walk out of. There’s been one horrific incident already: In the first hour of the race, Audi driver Allan McNish collided with a slower Ferrari GT, sending McNish hard into the barriers, his Audi R18 TDI shattering into a thousand pieces. The only bit of the car to remain intact was the safety shell – yet McNish walked out of it. Miraculously, the Audi didn’t tumble on to the marshals and photographers behind the barrier, something that would have been eerily reminiscent of the 1955 crash that killed 77 spectators and saw Mercedes withdraw from racing for 32 years.

But Mike Rockenfeller’s accident seems far, far worse than McNish’s. The replays show a Ferrari GT (again!) turning into Rockenfeller’s Audi, sending it into the gravel and head on into the steel barriers at 300kph. The car is in so many pieces we can’t even see the safety shell. The music stops. The praying starts. Top-flight motor racing hasn’t seen a racing driver killed behind the wheel since Ayrton Senna at Imola 17 years ago. We all hold our breath and wait for news.

Finally, 20 minutes later, word comes in that Rocky walked out of the car. There are whoops of delight, hugs all round, the beer – flat and warm by now – is wiped off and we head back to the Le Mans village for some late-night partying.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans is the most famous and historic endurance race on earth. Run since 1923, with only a short break in 1936 and another from 1940 through 1948 (due to more pressing matters like the war), Le Mans has hosted some of the greatest cars and drivers of all time – the Bentley Boys, Jags, super-fast Porsches and the legendary Mercedes Gullwing. It has also seen some of racing’s greatest moments: the McLaren F1’s winning debut, Ford’s triumph over Ferrari in the Sixties, and now, the dominance of Audi and its mighty diesels.

In 2005, after winning for four years in a row, Audi decided to take on a new challenge and unveiled its first-ever diesel powered car, the R10 TDI, which promptly won on debut the following year. Though Peugeot followed suit with the 908 HDi FAP in 2007, Audi had established its dominance in the category and took home two more victories – until it was beaten by Peugeot in 2009. But this year was different. New regulations for the 2011 race meant that Audi had to go back to the drawing board to come up with an all-new 3.7-litre V6 turbo-diesel. Audi’s engineers managed to build an engine that cranked out over S32hp and 900Nm of torque, an impressive number given the restrictions. To make it even more efficient, Audi moved back to a closed-roof design for the first time since 1999 – though I think this was done to make the R18TDI the “World’s Scariest Racecar”, all black and menacing with those weirdly sci-fi LED headlights tracing the number 1. No lack of confidence there.

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